A shifting season

Saturday, September 6, 2025

We're packing and sorting this whole week. Some things have been tossed. Others are rehomed. There's more to do, that's for sure. Yesterday W and PakG hauled away a few loads of tables and chairs.

We met with the builders yesterday afternoon, walking through a checklist, updating details, and confirming what goes where.

Mostly, we are trying to do less at the project while keeping it functional. Today I write up whatever I remember into a list of agreements and sent it to the reno group to keep everyone on the same page.

We say farewell to a beloved uncle as Uncle Albert passes away. He was Mom's last remaining sibling. My father and his siblings have passed on.

Mom tells me stories of Uncle Albert, a quiet brother born 3 years after she was. "He was most like our father," she muses. "Both were sharp dressers. They loved their families and were hard workers."

She remembers her brothers and sisters in occasional stories. She was the frail child among her siblings and almost died of pneumonia. At 90, Mom is the last direct descendent in her generation.

Today is my hard deadline for sending in class grades but I keep getting distracted by things that are more fun. Things that are necessary but not as urgent as the grading. I submit the final grades before noon.

The double blooms are out.

The three-toned bush is displaying its beauty.

Lunch at HomeGround Restaurant has the best Szechwan flavors on the upper side of the city. Noodles for me, of course.

The kangkung (water spinach) is a delicious side dish.

We take dessert home: a bomb and a mango cheese, whatever that is.

Packing complete, we tidy up the house. My best hiking shoes are wearing, as much from washing as from use. Kirsten offers to find me the discontinued shoe. She's the queen of searches and finds a pair.

W and I discuss tomorrow's schedule, watch a movie, and fall asleep early.

Sunday

Baptism Sunday! a highlight for God's people around the world, including at IES Bandung. Hanny is hosting classes to explain the Good News about becoming part of God's Family through Jesus Christ. W does the cold work of baptizing in an unheated tank.

Each Sunday, we offer an ABC reminder of what it means to accept salvation through Jesus:

• A: We admit that we cannot earn our salvation (Romans 3:23). Our efforts are not enough: we need God's help for forgiveness and reconciliation to God (Romans 6:21-23).
• B: We believe we are loved and saved by God (John 3:16-18). He himself has paid our debts of sin, forgiven us, and invited us into relationship with himself. He has provided a new birth and living hope. We cannot design our own salvation but become a new creation in Christ, as laid out in scripture (Romans 8:1-4).
• C: We commit to living for God. We confess our sins (1 John 1:9). We accept his forgiveness through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ his only Son (Romans 10:8-10). This is how we become His children, beloved and known by God (2 Corinthians 5:16-21).

Baptism is the outward sign of the beautiful hope of Good News. Our new inner reality is expressed in the act of baptism: as we are lowered into the water, we identify with the death of Christ. Coming up out of the water, we say we have been raised to new life in Him.

Titik has made a beautiful bouquet. I'm stunned by her creativity, week after week - a kind of visual worship offered with love.

The volunteers gather in the Prayer Room before the Gathering.

Daniel shares a message of hope, while his wife Della translates.

After a board meeting, we head home. When we drive down the hill to catch the airport shuttle, I leave my carry-on luggage in the entry. W discovers that when we unload our luggage. Oh oh! Between W and Melvina (who orders a GoSend motorcycle), my carry-on arrives 10 minutes before our shuttle leaves for the Jakarta airport. 

Our 3.5 hour shuttle ride takes 5 hours in Sunday traffic. There's all kinds of traffic, including fruit-laden trucks. 

We're safely dropped off near the airport hotel before 7 PM and sleep deeply until morning.

Read more:

* May the Lord cause you to flourish, both you and your children.

May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind.

It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down to the place of silence;

it is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore.

Praise the Lord. Psalm 115:15-18

* Never take your word of truth from my mouth. Psalm 119:43

* They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Romans 1:25

* At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. 

And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Moravian Prayer: Lord, too often we stray from you. The world has myriad distractions to take us off course. Your word is like a map providing us guidance to find our way home. May we follow where you lead. Amen!